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Session 16
Rack and/or Roll 25 Flamerule(morning) The party continues into the Rockblight. Freekend sees a figure watching from up a stairway near the waterfall and the party goes to check it out. Kaia stealths ahead, still agile despite her advanced years, and sees a slight humanoid creature, perhaps four feet tall, towards the back of the cave. She grapples the creature, holding it in place while the rest of the party arrives. The humanoid identifies himself as Gallus, a pech. Pech are closely linked with stone and earth, and may have originally came from the Elemental Plane of Earth. He is short and thin with yellowish skin and dark, pupil-less eyes. Over a short conversation Gallus tells the party that Ogremoch’s Bane (the Raging Spirit, to his people) is not far away. It has corrupted stone statues left by the medusa, which is the source of the attacking stone drow. The Bane is not actually a large spirit as the gnomes think but actually a single fist-sized stone which controls the earth and stone around it telekinetically. The pech could identify the particular stone but Gallus and his people will not go near the area while the medusa lives. After the conversation Gallus steps back and melds into the stone behind him. The party searches the cavern they find themselves in. The waterfall is fed by a spring at the back, which flows through the center of the cavern. A stairway on each side leads to a wide ledge of stone at the back. Sebastian spots arcane symbols covered by dust and rock on this ledge and points it out to Ralkor, who confirms it is a teleportation circle. Ralkor makes note of the symbols for later use. The group backtracks slightly and continues on, locating a large cavern filled with large crystal formations and light provided by glowing fungus. A statue of a gnome crouches next to one of the formations, holding a chunk of crystal to his eye. Two tunnels lead out of the room, one going up and one going down. The west side of the room has two staircases leading up. Sebastian suggests that the crystals may protect against the medusa’s gaze, though it didn’t seem to help the gnome any. Various members of the party grab a crystal chunk, while Sebastian attempts to rig up something to hold crystals in place while leaving his hands free. He is not very successful. Kaia appropriates Fargus’s googles and Freekend is able to fit them with pieces of crystal. She scouts out the tunnel leading up. Above she finds a room filled with decaying riches and a female drow sitting on a throne with four stone drow kneeling before her. She updates the rest of the group and they attempt to formulate a plan before ultimately just sort of rushing in there like they always do. The drow woman reveals herself to be the medusa, as expected, and the fight is on. There are a couple close calls on the saving throws but in the end she is killed without anyone being turned to stone. The group then cuts off her head, as one does. The tunnel leading down from the crystal room is found to contain several stone drow and earth elementals. The party returns to look for Gallus, finding him near the waterfall again. He goes to find his people, returning after a short rest, and everybody troops back to the room with the stone drow and elementals. Gallus believes that Ogremoch’s Bane is in or near here. The party approaches the enemies and when they get close the elementals react to their presence and attack. As the fight continues the party feels a sense of impending doom. When the last elemental dies the rocks and dust in the room form a swirling cloud. Gallus and his pech use a ritual that allows the group to speak with the Bane, who demands that they find and destroy Entremoch’s Boon, a sacred cave located somewhere one or two days travel from Blingdenstone. The Bane says that it will leave once the gnomes can no longer use Entremoch’s Boon to summon and control elementals. Freekend confirms that the Boon exists and is sacred to the svirfneblin, but it’s location has been lost. Freekend says the gnomes won’t allow the Boon to be destroyed if it is found. The party decides fuck it and tells Gallus to locate the core of Ogremoch’s Bane. The pech cause the rock to glow green and the Bane, realizing the party will not do what he wants, creates a rocky body to protect the core. A fight follows which should have been harder but ended up being pretty easy. Should have given Ogremoch’s Bane legendary actions. Anyway, the group successfully destroys Ogremoch’s Bane and crushes the rock at the core. After the fight the pech depart, with Gallus saying that they’re not super happy about the svirfneblin (the peck don’t like that the gnomes work stone and dig for gems) but recognize that they need to live somewhere, and it might as well be Blingdenstone which has already been marked by the gnomes. The party goes up the stairs from the crystal room, finding the Steadfast Stone. They cleanse the temple per Gurnik Tapfinger’s request, making use of Ralkor’s Tiny Hut to protect the stone during the ritual. After destroying three crazed earth elementals and dropping the hut the temple is cleansed. We stop there with the Young Adventurers just hitting level 7 (next time they take a long rest anyway). Until next time when they return to Blingdenstone and probably wave the medusa’s head in everybody’s face.